


liberté égalité vinagré

by tantamoq



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hogwarts, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-16
Updated: 2013-05-16
Packaged: 2017-12-12 02:13:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/805952
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tantamoq/pseuds/tantamoq
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjolras's thoughts are keeping him awake, so he sneaks out of his dormitory to find someone to share them with. </p><p>Basically just some Golden Trinity fluff set in my Hogwarts AU, because I had a funny idea, and I wanted to get it down somehow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	liberté égalité vinagré

Enjolras couldn't sleep. The Slytherin dormitory, being in the dungeons, was always a bit too cold, but tonight, no matter of warming spells trapped between mountains of blankets will fight it off, and besides that, he was already feeling itchy without the wool against his skin. It had been three hours since he tucked in for the night, first with a book (some thick, leatherbound thing by an old Muggle philosopher Feuilly had recommended to him, which he was enjoying so much that he was trying to pace himself on so as not to finish it all too fast), then without, but there's just no way around it: he couldn't sleep. Perhaps if he took a potion to soothe his nerves and racing mind, but by this point, he would have to take so much of the stuff to have any effect that the last time he did, he wound up missing two days of classes, and waking up in the infirmary to a harsh reprimand from the Headmaster himself, not to mention a gaggle of concerned friends. So the sleeping draught was out, then, and the reading he'd been doing was only making things worse, only making his mind more restless. There was only one thing to be done that could really help him calm and process his thoughts when they got like this, like papers scattered all over the floor of a study, and all of them fascinating, too fascinating to stop and sort and stack. No, he couldn't sleep, and he couldn't sort his thoughts, at least, not on his own, and definitely not on his own in his nightgown in his increasingly uncomfortable bed. 

 

Normally when he got like this, he could call an Amis meeting, and have everyone in the Room of Requirement to hear him out. The excitement in his head would become more easy to handle when he could see it reflected in the faces of his friends, and nothing comforted him more than good debate and discourse, not to mention the simple act of being with them all. Sitting up in bed, he even contemplated the ribbon cockade on his nightstand that had been spelled to be a communicator between Enjolras and his friends, something Combeferre had come up with from an old book, but it was nearly half past three in the morning, and a holiday weekend anyway, so he figured that if he could actually reach anyone with it, they wouldn't be thrilled to be hearing from him. Either they'd be in bed, or they'd pointedly not be, and either way, half past three was no time to be interrupting anyone. Well, almost anyone.

 

The floor creaked slightly beneath his feet as he stood up, and Enjolras's eyes flicked warily over to the bed a bit over from his, relieved to find that, as usual, Montparnasse was elsewhere. Carefully, he took his undergarments out of his trunk, and put them on under his nightgown, making sure of his silence as he did so. He pressed a fastening spell to the bandage at his chest gently, thankful for Combeferre's recent charming of the thing to actually relieve pain instead of inflict it, and then, sure of its security, pulled his nightgown off over his head, slipped into a clean shirt, stockings, pants, sweater, and robes, tucked his wand into his pocket (along with a few other things, including the book from Feuilly, which wouldn't fit in his pocket, so instead went under his arm), and slipped out of the dormitory. He held his shoes in his hands until he was outside the common room, to keep his footfalls more silent as he departed, to keep from waking nosy prefects who were just dying to find some reason to get him in trouble. _Self righteous, bourgeois idiots, thinking they're better than everyone just because they're Purebloods_ , Enjolras thought to himself as he slid on first one shoe, than the other. _We're not better than anyone just because we come from old magic. Blood has nothing to do with worth or merit._ A fact which, he thought, the current Slytherin prefects proved quite soundly. 

 

It wasn't that all Slytherins were bad, of course, or all prefects, or even all Slytherin prefects. Several of his friends were prefects, as it happened, and Combeferre, to no one's surprise, had actually been named Head Boy that year, though he had declined the responsibility in favour of spending more time working in the Infirmary and the Greenhouses. It was only the people who _abused_ their power, as prefects, or as anything else, that bothered Enjolras. He ducked behind a suit of armour to avoid a wandering ghost who's allegiances (him, or the teachers who might have him punished for being out of bed at such an hour, again) he was unsure of, and scowled pensively as he waited for it to float past. This was exactly what he'd been reading about, and just the thing that had been keeping him up all night. Not that it was a new consideration, rather quite the opposite, but it was a pressing one. There was a reason why he had such an impressive tolerance to the sleeping draughts, after all. Once his mind was stirring, there was no stopping it or slowing it without sharing the contents with his friends.

 

He made a quick note of where he was as he waited for a staircase to swing back into the right position for him to head up it, and decided to try and see if Courfeyrac was awake. He hadn't been fully sure who he wanted to go see until just that moment, but the staircase had been headed for the kitchens, so it seemed, and now, so would he. Courfeyrac had a warm, gentle exuberance to him even when he'd just been woken up unexpectedly, and his housemates were generally rather easygoing when it came to Enjolras's rulebreaking, so long as it hurt no one and got none of them in trouble. Courfeyrac contained multitudes: everything about him gave the impression of being open, and that was just the thing Enjolras needed. 

 

It was only after he arrived at the barrels that marked the secret entrance to the Hufflepuff common room that Enjolras realized he didn't remember the order you were supposed to tap them to get in. He hadn't been to visit Courfeyrac in a few weeks, the two of them spending most of their time together in class or all-school common areas, and the last few times, Courfeyrac had accompanied him in, so he'd done the password, and besides, the order changed periodically anyway. It wasn't supposed to be easy for members of other houses to sneak into each other's dormitories, after all. Frowning, he considered the barrels, took out his wand, and then took off his robes, sweater, shoes again, and the book he'd been carrying, and tucked them across the hall, just in case. The air around the secret entrance to the Hufflepuff common room was unlike that near the Slytherin one, or the others, being near the kitchens, it was full of food smells, and the sound of house elves already starting getting breakfast prepared. Nevertheless, it seemed imposing. Enjolras sighed, and took his best guess, tapping the barrels in an order half driven by memory, and half by instinct. Neither, as it happened, was steering him in the right place, and he closed his eyes and skittered backwards just in time to feel the barrels soak his hair and the front of his shirt in sticky vinegar. 

 

He shook out his curls gently, trying to ignore the smell, and tried again. On the fourth go, he was so drenched in vinegar that he was surprised the aroma alone hadn't woken the Headmaster all the way from his study several floors up and staircases over, or anyone else for that matter, but he'd come that far anyway, and it wasn't as if he could go anywhere else: the only people who knew how and might be willing to get the smell off him were through the door he was trying to open, so there was no point in giving up now. It took him seven more attempts before the door opened, although by no exact influence of his own. 

 

“Enjolras?” Courfeyrac, flanked by two bewildered first year boys, and a disgruntled sixth year prefect girl, who's name he couldn't remember, was still in his nightclothes, and wearing an expression that couldn't decide whether it was amused or bewildered. 

 

Enjolras forced him a smile, refusing to look at all sheepish or ashamed, despite the fact that it was four in the morning and he smelled like a pickle factory. “I couldn't remember the order, so I just kept trying. I must speak with you.”

 

Courfeyrac raised an eyebrow, and along with it, like a puppet on strings, the corner of his mouth in a playful half-smile. “Yes, well, I'm up, and you're here, and you smell terrible, so, mission accomplished? I'd quite fancy a walk right now, actually. Sleep is overrated, as I'm sure you'll agree, after all, as is breathing, and drinking. Boring stuff, why bother with it when you can be drenching yourself in vinegar and risking expulsion in order to avoid waiting two or perhaps three hours to speak to one of your friends.” Enjolras scowled at him, and Courfeyrac grinned like a bobcat. “Let me get some pants on, and assure my hysterical neighbour upstairs that we aren't being attacked, and we'll see if we can't do something about the talking, and the smell. By the way,” he added to his housemates, “you don't have to stay here gawping, it's not as if you haven't seen this before.” They seemed glad to leave and return to their beds, as if their presence was a house requirement for shenanigans of any kind, and they were unwilling participants, which Enjolras supposed was plausible. This was Hufflepuff, after all. 

 

“Hysterical neighbour?” he inquired, and Courfeyrac gave a low chuckle, nodding and saying, “You know, the threadbare set of robes that sleeps in the bed over from mine, and the boy that is sometimes known to accompany them?” to which Enjolras replied, “Pontmercy?”, at which Courfeyrac nodded again, and then disappeared up the stairs. 

 

One of the dismissed first years was still eyeing Enjolras from the top of it, and Courfeyrac herded him from his spectating post as he passed him, leaving Enjolras alone with his thoughts again, for the meantime, though luckily, not long. Courfeyrac was back, one hand still buttoning his trousers, a few moments later, and then they were off, Enjolras having let Courfeyrac charm the scent off him and help him dry off, for the most part, and his things recollected. 

 

They found Combeferre in the astronomy tower a while later, charting stars over a cup of lukewarm Earl Grey, as Enjolras had suspected they would. As Courfeyrac and Enjolras entered together, he set down his quill, smiled, and remarked, “Have you two been pickling things without me, or did Enjolras get impatient with the barrels again?”, which made them all laugh. They had done their best to dispel the scent, of course, but it _was_ bewitched to linger. 

 

With his two dearest friends, Enjolras was finally able to ease his mind, showing them both the book, and telling them all about what he'd been reading, and thinking, all evening. It was more about equality, about how Muggles struggled for it amongst themselves just as the Wizarding folk did, and how the dichotomy between Muggle World and Wizarding World was even worse than any of the subdivisions of the two, and how Muggleborns were caught in the worst possible place of anyone (except, Combeferre noted, Squibs, to which Enjolras could not argue), and all the ways in which all the struggles and philosophers of history, of both histories, had mirrored each other, and might continue to do so, and how exactly was there ever to be a world in which these divisions did not exist? Would it be possible for Muggles and Wizards to live in harmony, or even, would it be possible for Muggleborns and Purebloods to reconcile? Though the outlook was grim, they all agreed: of course it was possible. They would make it possible. 

 

They went on like this through the night, and into the dawn, and none of them noticed when the sun rose, or the bells rang, or when, exactly, they all collapsed on top of each other, sleeping though breakfast entirely. Finally, Enjolras could sleep, and more, his face pressed against Combeferre's robes, one leg covered by one of Courfeyrac's, mind at ease with a more comfortable sort of busyness, he could dream.


End file.
